I began to worry when the kiwi guy sitting next to me at my hostel said..."that light bulb shouldnt be swaying that way. I wonder if theres an eartquake". I thought he was winding me up, being a tourist and all but i then felt the secondary tremor passing through the coach. If it wasnt for him i may have missed the fact that i has just experienced the primary and secondary tremors of an earthquake. I bet they werent saying that in Fiordland on the South Island - the source of the earthquake measuring 7.8 (pretty big and luckily no casualties!!).I was glad I was in the North Island!
One of the (other) highlights of Wanganui was catching the restored paddle steamer along the Wanganui River for a couple of hours. It was weird watching the crew open the "oven" and chuck in some coal like you see on trains in the movies and for the boat to "choo choo" like a train!!!
Soon pushed on to New Plymouth and up and coming coastal town. I've been getting local buses around in the north island rather than the tourist "kiwi experience" or "magic" buses which on top of your transport and door to door service organise everything for you ie accomodation etc. The local buses have been fine but what i should have done before arriving at New Plymouth was my research! I had already pre-booked my accomodation at New Plymouth which happended to be up a gigantic hill about 20 minutes from the bus stop (well it felt gigantic with my massive back pack on!!). Had i known that, i may have stayed somewhere closer to town. That said it was a lovely little eco lodge with resident cats and complimentary homemade cakes (allegedly - all the cakes were gone by the time i got to the kitchen). The staff were ever so friendly and on more than one occassion went out of their way to help. Went for a few lovely coastal walks along the black sandy beaches of New Plymouth and checked out the "wind wand" ...an acclaimed piece of art on the seafront by some famous artist which basically i could have done myself! There are some nice coffee shops and bars and the library has free internet access which is a plus in any town in my book. Went to the movies to watch the new Harry Potter film (just awesome!!) and the cue for the cinema hall was a bit of a disorganised scrum but i managed to get a good seat in the house in the end! Spent saturday night in a Irish bar (which surprising lacked an atmposphere) watching the All blacks just scrape a win against Australia in the Bledisloe (SP) cup
Could easily have spent a few more nights in New Plymouth but time was pressing to move on to Waitomo Caves. Really wanted to book the 4 hour Adventure caving tour which takes you black water rafting/abseiling/caving but it was a little too expensive for me so opted for the walking tour around the Glow worm cave and the Aranui Cave which was very cool and then went for a short bush walk after. Other than the caves there isnt much else to do in Waitomo Villages so pushed on the Rotorua arriving at 6pm. By 630 pm i had booked myself onto a local Maori Culturual evening where you get to see some traditional dancing, an operated waka (canoe) and eat a traditional Hangi meal with some non traditional deserts (chocolate log and trifle - yum yum!!)
Having said that i was too tight to do the adventure caving, on a whim i went and did a 15000 ft skydive today. Despite my ears hurting and my goggles riding up the one eyed views over Rotorua were just amazing. Very exhilarating and frightening but so worth the small fortune i dished out. Having done a skydive about 9 yrs the edge was slightly taken out of the dive if i am honest as i knew what to expect but that still didnt stop me from thinking i was crazy on the plane on the way up!!
Going to check out some thermal villages tomorrow and then white water rafting, zorbing and a jet boat ride later on in the week. All in all having fun.x
